A senior Catholic cleric failed to note a key conversation with a paedophile priest which ensured a criminal admission was not recorded, a child abuse inquiry has found.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse today released its findings into allegations that the priest, John Gerard Nestor assaulted, children in Wollongong in the 1990s.

The commission found that the senior cleric at the Catholic Diocese of Wollongong, Father Brian Lucas, ensured there was no written record of admissions of criminal conduct and that this was done in order to protect the priest and the church.

There were rumours of Nestor's attacks on children from the 1990s and the Vatican authorities put children at risk by taking more than five years to finally agree on Nestor's removal from ministry in 2008, according to the commission report.

An outcome of Father Lucas' practice was to ensure that there was no written record of any admissions of criminal conduct in order to protect the priest and the Church.

Royal commission report

The report stated: "During the 1990s, rumours spread about camps that he (Nestor) ran where boys were swimming naked, showering in the open and where Nestor had conversations with boys about the size of their genitalia."

Father Lucas, now the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference, was found to have made no record of an interview with Nestor in 1993.

"An outcome of Father Lucas' practice was to ensure that there was no written record of any admissions of criminal conduct in order to protect the priest and the Church," the report said.

The report stated that Father Lucas had told Nestor at the interview that what he said would be confidential and that no records of the interview would be made.

Father Lucas said Nestor's right to silence would be undermined if he recorded or subsequently disclosed what was said in the interview.

In 1996, an allegation of child sexual abuse was made against Nestor and he was convicted of aggravated indecent assault and an aggravated act of indecency on a person under the age of 16.

The following year, he was acquitted on appeal.

Although he was acquitted, complaints continued to be made against Nestor and questions arose as to whether he should be allowed to continue as a priest.

The commission said that when Nestor was finally removed, the church should have revealed this to the public because of the sexual abuse findings.